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Fusion researchers angry over White House gag

By
DAN CHARLES in
WASHINGTON DC

White house officials are blocking the release of data from fusion experiments
carried out at nuclear weapons laboratories in the US. They believe that
the experiments, in which laser beams power a fusion reaction, could reveal
secrets of the hydrogen bomb.

Scientists at the nuclear laboratories are ‘beside themselves’ over
the continuing gag order, says one official. According to the researchers,
German and Japanese scientists often present data at open conferences that
are treated as military secrets in the US.

Laser-powered fusion, sometimes called inertial confinement fusion,
is produced by focusing an array of powerful laser beams on a small pellet
of hydrogen fuel. The US will not reveal the design of the fuel ‘targets’
or details of the computer software that is used to design them and analyse
data from the experiments.

Laser fusion is an alternative to magnetically confined fusion, in which
a superheated plasma of fusion fuel is suspended in a reactor called a tokamak.
But unlike magnetically confined fusion research, laser fusion experiments
in the US, Britain and France have been funded by the military as a way
to study the physics of thermo-nuclear weapons. Research in the US is located
at the nuclear laboratories of Los Alamos and Livermore. In Britain, comparable
research is carried out at the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Alder-maston
in Berkshire.

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The laser fusion programme received more than $1.5 billion in government
funding during the 1980s. The budget for 1992 was $192 million, and increases
next year to $212 million.

Despite their military funding, many who work on laser-powered fusion
in the US believe that it will prove useful as a source of commercial energy.
They point out that Japan and Germany have already begun civilian research
programmes devoted to exploring the potential of laser fusion for generating
power.

American scientists have been calling for less secrecy on laser fusion,
so that they can work more easily with foreign colleagues and promote their
research. Two years ago, two reports prepared by the National Academy of
Sciences and a panel of specialists from within the Department of Energy
came to the same conclusion, recommending that some details of the fusion
experiments should be declassified.

Following those reports, the energy secretary, James Watkins, announced
that he was ordering a review of secrecy rules on inertial confinement fusion.
The review would ‘eliminate unnecessary restrictions’, he promised.

On 1 April, staff at the department of energy presented the results
of the review to Watkins. They recommended releasing detailed information
on the design of fuel pellets and some computer software. Watkins felt it
was a good proposal and is reported to have asked for the recommendations
to be laid out in a formal document for approval.

But officials from the White House National Security Council stepped
in and put a stop to the process. They were worried that information from
the experiments could give foreign nations clues to the design of important
thermonuclear weapons.

A decision on whether to declassify laser fusion data has now been referred
to an inter-agency committee responsible for nuclear nonproliferation policy
that is chaired by the State Department. Several officials, none of whom
agreed to be quoted by name, say this bureaucratic manoeuvre probably means
that nothing will be decided until some months after the Clinton administration
takes over.